New Challenge: Tengwar
Each day for thirty-six days, we feature a randomly chosen letter from the Tengwar as a prompt.
SWG News
A Sense of History: Crossroads
In the ongoing series on towers in Tolkien's work, a thread runs through "The Lord of the Rings," revealing the divine assistance of Varda in the travails of the Fellowship.
Cultus Dispatches: Canon Deviations, Multifandoms, and Original Content
Tolkien Fanfiction Survey data gives some insight into what connections, if any, exist between fanfiction and original fiction.
The SWG Is Featured in Two Journal Articles
In a recent special issue of "Transformative Works and Cultures" about platforms, the SWG was discussed in two articles.
New & Updated Fanworks
[Writing] Dealing with Dreams by Himring
Elrond and Elros are haunted by what happened and also by what did not. They live with it.
[Writing] Tengwar (working title) by cuarthol
For the Tengwar prompt challenge. To be updated as new prompts are completed.
[Writing] Do you cut down down blossoming trees in the spring for firewood? by Himring
In western Numenor, there is an area famous for its trees and plants. But the Faithful have been banished to the east. And in the last days of Numenor, on the coast an army assembles...
[Writing] Family Gossip by StarSpray
“You,” Fingon pronounced, “are drunk. I am not going to give you anyone’s name just so you can make up a silly drunken ballad."
[Writing] Lost and Found by awwyeah107
In the aftermath of the second kinslaying, Maglor and Maedhros are faced with the disappearance of a pair of twins: Eluréd and Elurín.
Years later, another pair of twins—this time under the Fëanorians’ care—are missing: Elrond and Elros.
[3 chapters, posted over 3 consecutive days…
[Writing] What Comes Naturally by Rocky41_7
Two queens of the Noldor discuss motherhood.
[Writing] Emissary by Uvatha the Horseman
60 years before the War of the Ring, The Mouth of Sauron is being raised as an illegitimate son in the house of his father. More than anything, he craves security and a title of his own.
Current Challenge
Tengwar
A daily prompt of a Tengwar letter per day. Read more ...
Random Challenge
Secret Gate
A Matryoshka challenge where prompts are based on the common plot points and tropes from mystery novels. Read more ...
New in References
[]
With Gildor Inglorion we finally climb the stairs of Elostirion and look on the view, and what we see appears to reveal a hidden thread in the story of Frodo Baggins. This post reads two annotated translations of two Elvish songs to step through a crossroads in the narrative to arrive at the tower on the margin of the story, wherein is a stone that is a window onto Valinor.
Grief, Grieving, and Permission to Mourn in the "Quenta Silmarillion" by Dawn Walls-Thumma
[]In a book as full of death as the Quenta Silmarillion, grief and mourning are surprisingly absent. The characters who receive grief and mourning—and those who don't—appear to do so due to narrative bias. Grief and mourning (or a lack of them) serve to draw attention toward and away from objectionable actions committed by characters.
In the House of the Fairbairns by Simon J. Cook
[]The first of some posts on the Elf-tower on the western margin of The Lord of the Rings attempts to frame the relationship between the narrative and the appendices of The Lord of the Rings and an analysis of Frodo's dream-visions.
Beyond the Silmarillion
[Writing] Waybread (The Waybredlik) by Himring
[]Lembas speaks out.
[Series] Apr 1st Stories by Uvatha the Horseman
[]Once a year on April 1st, a canon character from LOTR or the Silmarillion gets pranked.
[Writing] Crossing Forest River by Dawn Felagund
[]Bilbo recounts, in verse, the attempt of Gandalf, Beorn, and him to cross the Forest River after the Battle of Five Armies. Written for the Hungarian Tolkien Society's 2024 Mailing Competition.
Around the World and Web
Tolkien Society Seminar: Tolkien's Romantic Resonances
This free hybrid event explores the influence of Romanticism on Tolkien's works.
Tolkien Ekphrasis Week 2024
This is a Tolkien-fandom-wide event dedicated to the art of ekphrasis in Tolkien's worlds, hosted on Tumblr and Dreamwidth.
Glorfindel Week 2024
Glorfindel Week is a week-long Tumblr event for creating fanworks that celebrate Glorfindel. Glorfindel Week will run April 29-May 5, 2024.
WIP Big Bang 2024
The WIP Big Bang has one goal in mind: to clean out your fanfic drafts folder. Complete a story and receive art to go with it.
Forgotten Ground Regained: Call for Submissions
Forgotten Ground Regained is looking for alliterative poetry on the themes of love, devotion, and desire for their upcoming fall issue.
SWG News
New Challenge: Tengwar
Posted by SWG Moderators on 14 April 2024. Last updated on 14 April 2024.
The Tengwar are one of the delights of visiting Middle-earth as a fan of Tolkien's work. Whether a serious student of the letters; dabbling with them, Appendix open, on a lazy afternoon; or simply admiring the way they flow across a title page (or the One Ring …), most Tolkien fans find them beautiful and packed with meaning beyond what it seems should be contained within a single letter.
This month (and a bit beyond!), we will feature a prompt per day taken from the Tengwar chart. The prompt will include a graphic of the tengwa and its name in Quenya and English. You can use any part of the prompt: the tengwa itself, the name, the English translation, the graphic, or some other creative interpretation we haven't even dreamed up yet! You may do as many or as few of the daily prompts as you would like. One prompt is worth as much as challenging yourself to do them all, so work at the level and pace that is comfortable for you. (However, there may be a special reward for anyone ambitious enough to try them all!) Tengwar prompts can be found here.
Prompts will be posted daily at midnight UTC on our website, Tumblr, Dreamwidth, and the #monthly-challenges channel on our Discord. You do not need to do the prompt on the day it was posted; you can go back and do prompts you missed or do them out of order.
In honor of Poetry Month, we will have a special stamp for fanworks that are or include poetry. In order to receive a stamp for your fanwork, your response must be posted to the archive on or before 15 June 2024. Note that the deadline is a month later than usual since the challenge runs longer than usual. For complete challenge guidelines, see the Challenges page on our website.
Thank you to Cuarthol and Anérea for the gorgeous banners and stamps this month!
A Sense of History: Crossroads
Posted by SWG Moderators on 13 April 2024. Last updated on 13 April 2024.
For the past several months as part of our A Sense of History column, Simon J. Cook has been pursuing the question of towers in Tolkien, beginning with the mysterious tower of "Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics" and into the towers of Tolkien's Ardaverse, currently The Lord of the Rings.
This month's column follows the "red thread" of Valarin aid to the Fellowship in The Lord of the Rings. Returning from the West-gazing palantír of Elostirion, which is said to show a glimpse of Varda in Valinor, Gildor Inglorion bestows a blessing of Varda's protection upon Frodo. Simon traces the miraculous influence of Varda, revealed via a palantír in a tower, throughout the ensuing narrative that becomes an essential element of The Lord of the Rings.
Cultus Dispatches: Canon Deviations, Multifandoms, and Original Content
Posted by SWG Moderators on 30 March 2024. Last updated on 31 March 2024.
Fanfiction and original fiction are sometimes depicted as different, separate forms of writing. In this month's Cultus Dispatches column, using data from the 2015 and 2020 Tolkien Fanfiction Surveys, Dawn Felagund looks at the various iterations that exist between canon-compliant fanfiction and original fiction. Writers may, for example, push the boundaries of canon in original directions or invent their own original characters. They may write in other fandoms or even cross fandoms together. Do these tendencies predict whether or not a writer will also create original fiction, as well as fanfiction?
You can read "Beyond Borders: Canon Deviations, Multifandoms, and Original Content" here.
The SWG Is Featured in Two Journal Articles
Posted by SWG Moderators on 30 March 2024. Last updated on 30 March 2024.
Last week, the journal Transformative Works and Cultures released their special issue on Fandom and Platforms. The SWG features in two of the articles in this issue!
Welmoed Fenna Wagenaar in Discord as a Fandom Platform: Locating a New Playground looked at two Discord servers and used the lens of play to study how "users interact with and negotiate rule-based structures and designs" on a Discord server. It won't be hard to figure out which is the SWG, even though we are not named!
The second article is Dawn's The Fading of the Elves: Techno-volunteerism and the Disappearance of Tolkien Fan Fiction Archives. This article is historical in approach, looking at the rise and fall of Tolkien fanfiction archives and how these trends match with historical events in the Tolkien fandom, wider fandom world, and internet more broadly. It also considers Francesca Coppa's idea of the "archive elf," which was too easy to align with Tolkien's legendarium to not exploit to its fullest. "Archive elves" are the volunteers who keep archives running, and it is a job that is invisible by design, leading to a decline in the role as archives have faded from the fandom landscape.
New Challenge: It Comes in Threes
Posted by SWG Moderators on 13 March 2024. Last updated on 18 April 2024.
Pythagoras called the number three the noblest of all digits. Certainly, language, religion, myth, history, literature, and popular culture are littered with things that come in threes. The legendarium is no exception. Three is a powerful number in Tolkien's world, and like the Primary World, there are many examples in Middle-earth that come in threes. (The word "three" is mentioned fifty-nine times in The Silmarillion!)
For this month's challenge, we gathered 130 prompts that occur in sets of three. You can select any prompt (or prompts!) from our list to inspire or incorporate in your fanwork. Note that some prompts may have multiple meanings or interpretations. When this is the case, you can choose whatever interpretation you want to use.
We also craft our March challenge to integrate with other challenges and events (traditionally Back to Middle-earth Month!), so this is a good time for a reminder that our challenges can be combined with other events.
In order to receive a stamp for your fanwork, your response must be posted to the archive on or before 15 April 2024. For complete challenge guidelines, see the Challenges page on our website.
Thank you to Independence1776 for this month's lovely stamps and banner!
You can find the prompts on the It Comes in Threes challenge page.
A Sense of History: Seeing Stones in Dark Towers
Posted by SWG Moderators on 9 March 2024. Last updated on 13 April 2024.
In this month's A Sense of History column, Simon J. Cook continues to climb the stairs of various towers in Tolkien's works, both Middle-earth and not. This month, he focuses on the three inland "dark towers" of The Lord of the Rings and how they connect to the palantíri and other modes of seeing and imposing one's will in Middle-earth. These towers provide different insights than the tower at Elostirion, discussed last month, that looks out upon the sea. The dark towers—and later in the story, the Elf-towers as well—take on a different role that looks not outward to the numinous West but concentrates on the machinations that will come to be preserved as the history of Middle-earth.
You can read Simon's article "Seeing Stones in Dark Towers" here.
Cultus Dispatches: 10 Important Moments in Tolkien Fanfiction History
Posted by SWG Moderators on 24 February 2024. Last updated on 6 April 2024.
For this year's International Fanworks Day, the Organization for Transformative Works issued a "10 challenge" for fandom history, requesting "10 things" essays about fandom.
In this month's Cultus Dispatches column, Dawn takes on that challenge. In her own tenth year of studying Tolkien fanfiction and its history, she has selected (after much angst) ten key "moments" that influenced the fandom's history.
Tolkien-based fanfiction has existed for more than seven decades. What has kept fans interested in drawing from a seemingly bottomless well of stories about this imagined world? While, of course, a lot of it is the world itself (you're probably not reading this if you don't find the legendarium deep and worth exploring!), some of it comes from circumstances well outside anything Tolkien, his Estate, fans, and fandom had anything to do with.
You can read Dawn's "ten things" essay "10 Important Moments in Tolkien Fandom History" here.
New Challenge: Meet & Greet
Posted by SWG Moderators on 16 February 2024. Last updated on 16 March 2024.
Every year, we run a Matryoshka challenge, which is a format that, to the best of our knowledge, we invented. (If we didn't, Morgoth did!) A Matryoshka is a cumulative challenge, where you construct a fanwork using multiple prompts that are revealed as you work. Find out more about the Matryoshka format here.
This year, we've added an interactive component. Instead of the mods sending you two/three/five/seven prompt emails, you will receive a single starter prompt and then can acquire the remaining prompts from other participants or in places where you find them posted online. Complete Meet & Greet challenge guidelines (and a list of participants to contact for more prompts) are here!
If you'd like to participate, request your first prompt here.
Many thanks to Cuarthol for this month's gorgeous banner and stamps!
And if you clicked to read this? You deserve a prompt! Here it is: Something happens in the middle of the night.
A Sense of History: In the House of the Fairbairns
Posted by SWG Moderators on 10 February 2024. Last updated on 9 March 2024.
Tolkien fans and scholars like to find evidence of Tolkien's professional work as one of academia's leading Anglo-Saxonists in his works about Middle-earth. What is less often embarked upon is the search for evidence of Tolkien's Middle-earth work in his scholarly work.
For the past several months, as part of our Sense of History column, Simon J. Cook has embarked upon an analysis of the tower analogy Tolkien uses in his influential lecture-turned-essay "Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics." In his latest article, Simon applies the use of towers in The Lord of the Rings to consider how a reading of this important symbol in The Lord of the Rings can be applied to Tolkien's writings on Beowulf.
You can read Simon's article "In the House of the Fairbairns" here.
Cultus Dispatches: Things Tolkien Fanfiction Readers and Writers Like to Do (Other Than Fanfiction)
Posted by SWG Moderators on 3 February 2024. Last updated on 24 February 2024.
"Fandom" is a huge construct, and every imaginable way of engaging fannishly with a text has probably been tried by at least one person (and likely many persons). In this month's Cultus Dispatches column, Dawn Walls-Thumma looks at data from the 2020 Tolkien Fanfiction Survey related to how participants engage in the Tolkien fandom beyond reading and writing fanfiction.
What kinds of fannish activities are common among readers and writers of Tolkien fanfic? Less common? Does this differ whether the participant reads fic or writes it as well?
